High school students often hear lectures about attitude, respect, and responsibility. But Friday, Wareham High School freshmen and sophomores were treated to an atypical presentation.

The presentation "is to give you insight into what a knucklehead I was," speaker Mark Mainella told students as he bounced through the aisles of the high school auditorium, his voice booming off the walls. "That's not self-deprecation. That's the truth."

Mainella dropped out of school in ninth grade and spent years living on the streets, he told students. He got his life together, obtained his G.E.D., and worked in business. But he realized that he hated his career and found that money could not buy happiness.

Mainella has spent the past 35 years telling his story, in an effort to help others find happiness in life and realize their potential for success.

Mainella stressed the importance of being kind to one another, of having a positive self-image, and of having a passion for life.

Students sat in silence, careful not to be disrespectful to Mainella, who told them at the beginning of the lecture that he required maturity. "All I expect is for you to act like a human being," he said.

The students' gazes followed the speaker around the auditorium. Though in his sixties, and with health issues that cause him to shake, Mainella moved through the room with an energy level of which many would be envious.

Mainella's advice for living a quality life was simple. Follow the golden rule. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," he said.

"We are a jaded, valueless society. It's cool to give the finger?," Mainella asked. "I think it's cool to be nice."

Above all, be winners, Mainella told the students. "Winners take ownership," he said. "If you spend your life saying 'I can't,' then you won't."

The end of Mainella's lecture was met with dozens of smiles and thunderous applause.